Sony to coders: For Move, don't rehash Wii failures
As it prepares to release the PlayStation Move console, the company says it doesn't want developers to create games that have already failed on the rival Nintendo Wii.
Note to developers planning to make games for Sony's PlayStation Move controller: don't even try to rehash your past titles for the Wii.
Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, Sony's senior vice president of publisher relations, Rob Dyer, told the publication that when it comes to motion gaming, some titles work, and some just don't. And his company is currently working with developers to help them find the right genres and types of games that would work with the PlayStation Move--and nix those that would not.
"Our challenge here is to make sure [developers are] doing it with the right games and the right genres, and that's where we're spending a lot of our time--going back to people and going, 'Good idea. Bad idea. Good idea. Yeah, not so good idea,'" Dyer said. He went on to say his company is doing everything it can to stop developers from creating games for the Move for "millions of dollars" and lose money because they don't appeal to users.
Finding success can be tough for game developers. Although the Wii is a wildly popular game console, almost all of the successful titles on the platform have come from Nintendo. That poor track record for third parties has prompted some companies to rail against the Wii.
Last year, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said the Wii was "a little weaker" than his company anticipated. He went on to tell investors that "very, very few multiplatform titles are succeeding on the Wii so far, and collectively, Electronic Arts and Nintendo need to tackle that."
That's exactly the situation Sony says it hopes to avoid. The last thing the company wants, Dyer said, is to see the Move have only a handful of titles worth playing. If something didn't work on the Wii--regardless of how viable the idea might be, he said--it just won't work with the Move either.
"'You never should have made it,'" Dyer told Gamasutra he would say to developers who create rehashes of failed Wii titles for the Move. "'It was never going to work, anyway. It didn't work on the Wii for a reason. That category didn't. Why did you think it was going to work on this one, as well?'"
Whether developers will heed Sony's advice, only offering titles for the Move that both parties feel will succeed, remains to be seen. But Sony might be on to something with such a strategy. If nothing else, the Wii has shown that not every game is suitable for motion gaming.